We made a weekend out of it and made our first stop traveling down to our destination at an English tea house for afternoon tea. And yes it is truly a British style tea house with brewed tea in porcelain teapots. (That is the only way to serve tea! I grimace anytime I think of how some "restaurants" serve tea in a Styrofoam cup using a tea bag in luke warm water......grrrrrrrr. Only thing worse is microwaved tea. yuck) Anyways, it was pleasant stop over. Tea, pastries and little sandwiches.
People from all over the country (and world for that matter)attend this avian convention to hear speakers, meet up with specialty groups, make contacts, socialize, compete in the bird shows, and buy stuff.
I attended a couple of the seminars which were really interesting. One speaker from Canada is in charge of HARI (Hagen avian research institute) I was interested in hearing her talk to see what new types of food is beneficial for birds. She talked about her breeding program and how they reintroduce birds back to wild. What I found very interesting is a product they use called clay-cal. it is basically clay that is enriched with calcium they give their birds to help them digest and detoxify. Macaws in the wild naturally eat clay from a particular clay lick area in the amazon to keep themselves healthy.
Some of the other speakers had toy making workshops and ideas to keep our birds mentally stimulated and happy. Some speakers talked about free flight training and other things.
There were different birds people brought with them mostly for show. The bird in the above photo is a palm cockatoo. They are very smart but very rare. They cost $15,000.00 and you need a special permit to keep them. They are quite big and yet gentle and relatively quiet for a parrot.
I met some people there I had met from a different parrot convention in Texas a few years ago.
One of the vendors there I recognized her from years ago when I bought a budgie necklace from her.
One of her newer creations were beautiful hand custom bejeweled bracelets. One had caught my eye with a white capped caique on it that reminded me of one of my long time visitor "Ray" so I bought it. Unfortunately a piece broke off so I brought it back to see if could be repaired. It is a stunning bracelet so I should be getting back any day in the mail.
I also bought some toys for the birds and Christmas cards. ha!
All is all it was fun and interesting convention. my husband spent the day swimming in the pool. yeah!
He's no fool. Sounds like a regular vacation day for him. You had fun too, it seems. Good for you, V.
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